On the relative powers of various substances in preventing the generation of animalcule or the development of their germs : with special reference to the germ theory of putrefaction / by John Dougall.

  • Dougall, John
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relative powers of various substances in preventing the generation of animalcule or the development of their germs : with special reference to the germ theory of putrefaction / by John Dougall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Thus, though these plants may be considered, like their con- geners, the animalculse, as a sign of decay, which they undoubtedly are, yet the gi’eat majority of facts tend to show that they are not the cause of that process, but the consequence, the symptoms of decomposition, but, at the same time, the tangible proofs of recomposition. Remove, or prevent the moi’bid states which yield a soil suitable for their germination and multqjlication, and they will cease to germinate and multiply. Remove the cause and the symptoms will disappear. Second—lT7ia^ is the cause of putrefaction ? Having in some degree, perhaps, proven that animalculse and fungi rather prevent than cause putrefaction, it may now be attempted to show, what is already very generally admitted, that putrefaction is also caused by a scavenger, the name of which is Oxygen. The operations of this body, like those of its animal and vegetable co-workers, are, however, preceded by others, viz., diminished vitality or death of the organism, which may again proceed from a variety of states inimical to health and life. The method of procedure of oxygen in its incessant labours to keep sweet and pure the abodes of organic nature, is to dissolve comjilex aggrega- tions of matter by, at least, initiating chemical transposition, and sweep the metamorphosed and disunited molecules back into the inorganic world in the form of sulphuretted hydrogen, phos- phuretted hydrogen, carbonic acid, ammonia, water, nitrates, &c. Therefore we have— Conditions Inimical to Health, Producing Inorganic Kingdom.
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